If you are measuring indications of how well a company will perform, look no further than the shape of the CEO’s face.

New research shows male corporate leaders with wider faces, such as Herb Kelleher, former CEO of Southwest Airlines, and Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, demonstrate better financial performances than their peers with more narrow faces, such as former Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld.

The study, led by Elaine Wong at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, analysed photos of 55 male CEOs of Fortune 500 businesses.

Researchers led by Ms Wong, Assistant Professor of the Department of Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, compared facial ratios with information about the companies’ financial performances and letters to shareholders.

The result was that those with higher width-to-height ratios tended to lead the higher-performing companies.

Their research will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science.